Automotive safety is generally concerned with reducing the number of traffic accidents and lessening the severity of injuries when such accidents occur. During a collision of an automobile from the rear, or when a human body is thrown back after a violent braking or after a front-end collision, the lower back of the body and the trunk of the body are thrown into a backward direction. In contrast, the head, which is relatively heavy in relation to the remaining parts of the body, follows the trunk of the body under a violent bow at the neck and the back of the head. This can cause serious injuries, for example whiplash, which are sometimes not immediately observed but manifest themselves some time after the accident has happened.
Most protection apparatus of vehicles have been developed to protect the driver or the passengers from injuries obtained when the body is thrown forward during a crash. Relatively few efforts have been made to reduce injuries to human beings when a vehicle is collided with from behind, or when the body is thrown in a rearward direction resulting from a violent stop.
Conventional neck and/or back head supports do provide some protection against whiplash injuries, but often are not correctly placed in relation to the head of the driver or the passenger. For example, a head support is generally placed too low in relation to the driver or passenger's head, and depending on the stationary location of a back head support they often do not meet the violent movement which the head is subjected to during a whiplash.
The operation and inflation of a vehicular airbag, sometimes known as a vehicular gas bag, is well known to those skilled in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,472,230 discloses the operation of a portable vehicular air bag device and U.S. Pat. No. 6,149,231 discloses a headrest with a gas bag module inserted therein. However, prior art disclosures of vehicular air bags or headrests with air bags inserted within either do not address the need for protecting drivers and/or passengers from whiplash and/or head injuries, or are not feasible with respect to cost and/or labor required to replace said units. Therefore, there is a need to provide an economical and replacement-efficient headrest airbag which counteracts and/or aids in the prevention of whiplash and/or head injuries.